"No. We have to go to this place."

Abi presented a flier, "I'm not made of money, and this coupon, lets me reserve an entire stage for the night at a ninety percent discount. Plus, boys get free drinks, which I think is just soda in our case, but still. This is a lot out of pocket to help a friend and get nothing out of it. So I don't care how popular the other place is, we're going to Big Echo."

Kazou suddenly seized Abi's arm, drawing her close as he brushed against her. "If nobody else says it, THANK YOU for playing Cupid!" He gazed up at her with wide eyes and flashed a big smile. "I think it's amazing that you're going to such lengths for your friend and ours." His eyelashes fluttered as he bestowed Abi with a subtle smile, a slight tilt of the head, and a casual hair flip, pushing a few stray strands behind his ear.

Abi's demeanor froze as her blood pressure skyrocketed. Despite her attempts to maintain an aloof facade and feign immunity to boyish charms, Kazou had a way of igniting a response. Abi stumbled over her words for a few moments until Kenko stepped in to rescue her. "Kazou! Technically, this is a date between Abi and Toshi," Kenko shot Abi a brief glance before he finished berating his friend, "Wait until after the date."

Kazou withdrew with downcast eyes and offered a mumbled apology. Abi blinked, briefly questioning if she was being set up, but decided to overlook the incident and refocus on the upcoming date. "Uh... whatever. Look. I'll take care of everything; just remember that if I'm sitting on one side of Toshi, Meiko needs to sit on the other. I'll make sure I'm busy doing stuff to give them as much time together as possible."

Kenko nodded, but a frown slowly crossed his face, "Just... one warning. Ruri is coming along."

Abi quirked an eyebrow, "So?"

Kenko glanced around, then took Abi by the arm, leading her away from the others for a private conversation. "It took some digging, but Ruri's father died, and... while I'm not sure how he died, it might have been suicide," Kenko disclosed. Abi winced as Kenko continued, "I think the anniversary is tonight. Toshi has been sticking to Ruri. I think he's worried about her."

Abi frowned, "Damn. Uh... should we cancel this?"

Kenko shook his head fast enough to make his hair bounce about his head, "Nonono! No. We keep to the plan, but I want YOU to know so that you can tell Meiko to be EXTRA kind to Ruri. You know what I mean?"

Abi furrowed his eyebrows, "Uh... no."

Kenko rolled his eyes, "There is NOTHING between those two. Trust me. However, she's a good friend of his. IF... Meiko gets on Ruri's good side and shows Toshi that she is a kind person who looks out for his friends..." Kenko's voice trailed off.

Abi snapped her fingers, "Oh! Now I get it! If Meiko cheers up Ruri, you have a grateful Toshi. I get it! I get it!" She lightly tapped Kenko on the arm with the back of her hand, "I wouldn't have thought of that. I like how you think."

Kenko's eyes briefly flickered towards Kazou for an imperceptible instant, "Yes, I noticed how you tend to miss things," He remarked, smiling with his eyes towards Abi. "Don't worry. We'll do everything we can to make MeiShi happen, but we can only do so much. The rest is up to Meiko," He added with a sigh. "I'm afraid Toshi may have attracted the wrong attention, so the sooner Meiko gets serious, the better."

Abi held her hands out wide in a placating gesture, "Reeeee-lax. She's got this! I mean..."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

He'd been lost inside Toshi's soul for way too long.

The angel's statement wasn't just about needing to escape Toshi. What the angel implied by being lost for far too long was that even considering the substantial size of Toshi's soul, he should have reached its edge by now. Toshi's soul exhibited a peculiar density, meaning that the farther one moved away from it, the less dense it became. Logically, ascending 'up' should lead to breaking free. Thus, the angel had initiated this upward journey and had been ascending now for a very long time.

Yet here he was, still lost inside the soul of Toshi.

The outer edge of Toshi's soul seemed to possess a sort of weather system, with currents and eddies of memetic energy, creating a perplexing situation where determining the direction of 'up' became impossible. This was the angel's working theory. Although identifying which way was 'down' proved to be a manageable task, the challenge lay in finding a way out. The angel surmised that stumbling upon Toshi's edge by random chance was a possibility, but it didn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

The angel's contact with Toshi was erratic and unpredictable. Seeking help from Toshi wasn't an option at this point, and reaching out to the angel's superiors posed its own set of problems. There was an unsettling feeling about command because of their recent actions. The angel couldn't quite pinpoint what was amiss. His first and foremost priority was Toshi's safety. A gut feeling told the angel that informing command about the current situation might not be in Toshi's best interest.

So if he couldn't get out, maybe the angel could go through.

The plan seemed suicidal, if Toshi adhered to the conventional rules of a soul. Fortunately, Toshi wasn't an ordinary soul, challenging the validity of those assumptions. The angel concluded that he had to take a chance. He would do the insane thing, the suicidal thing.

He would head straight DOWN.

If Toshi was a planet-sized soul with its own weather system, the angel's plan involved trying to skin dive into the depths of the Marianas trench with a snorkel mask and an oxygen tank full of nothing but hopes and dreams.

The angel had lost contact with his host upon breaking through to the 'super-fluid' layer of Toshi's soul. This layer marked the boundary between the energy he emitted and the essence where his memetic energy defined 'him'. It had been days since he surpassed the point where communication with Toshi was feasible. In this region, there were no swiftly flowing streams of energy; rather, it felt akin to swimming through a dense jello-like substance. There was a form of movement, but it carried a more magnatheric quality, distinct from the atmospheric flows encountered earlier.

The pressure proved immense but not fatal. The angel's descent speed wasn't constrained by his capability to move swiftly, but rather by the duration it took to acclimate to the pressures of each successive layer. These were layers that defied conventional understanding, layers that shouldn't exist, that were seemingly impossible. As the angel delved deeper into Toshi's soul, a growing conviction took hold – whatever he was witnessing wasn't natural.

Toshi's soul exhibited meticulous construction. This didn't imply that Toshi himself was artificial; rather, it resembled the process of a pearl forming layer by layer inside an oyster. Toshi's soul, resembling the theoretical ideal of a soul striving for nirvana, entailed the intricate layering of his life experiences. The magnitude of this construction suggested that achieving such a soul structure would require tens of thousands of lifetimes.

That didn't make any sense.

The world from which Toshi originated had existed within its dark matter bubble for roughly two or perhaps three thousand generations. Constructing a soul of this intricately layered perfection would typically demand ten times, if not a hundred times, as much time. The alternative was that Toshi might be the Buddha himself, having spent the past ten thousand years in deep and continuous meditative contemplation of his navel. Given what the angel knew about Toshi, he dismissed that possibility without a second thought.

The angel's speculation was, however, ultimately meaningless, because he had, finally, at long last, reached the point where he would find the answer to all his questions.

Even the ones he didn't know he wanted to ask.

The angel had finally reached the center of Toshi's soul.